Colombia briefly

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October 7th-18th

Suprise suprise our plans have changed again! We decided to only spend a week in Colombia as it takes such a long time to bus anywhere. We figured we will do Ecuador really well and then Colombia really well another time. I've added some photos at the start from our time in Batopilas.

We flew out from Chihuahua city and landed in Bogota, Colombia. We stayed at the most
amazing hostel its called 12:12. We met a guy called Isaac, who is the first Kiwi we've met on our travels, on the plane and he joined us for a few days hanging out in Bogota. He is so classic so we had a great time. We weren't overwhelmed with Bogota, just a big gritty city. We enjoyed checking out the gold museum with artifacts from the pre-hispanic era.
We caught a bus from Bogota to San Gil which was meant to take 6 hours and was just over 8 hours and didn't stop for a break once! The drivers are CRAZY CRAZY over here. Overtaking on blind corners and swerving around like maniacs.
We stayed in a sweet hostel right on the main square in San Gil called VIP Sams. San Gil is nice but pricey if you do tours. We bused to Barichara which is a gorgeous old colonial town close by for only 8,000 COL for the both of us. One NZD is 1,600 COL. Barichara was originally meant to be the capital of Colombia. Its in the same condition as it would have looked 500 years ago. Very cool. We walked from there along an old pre-hispanic track to the little town of Guane. Neat walk through the countryside.
Guane was smaller again and way more rustic, pretty classic seeing loads of grinning old toothless men sitting in the main square chinwagging.

We caught the bus from Guane for 12,000 for the both of us back to San Gil. We brought some delicious meat skewers from the main square and made burritos to save funds. Yum.
The next day we did a full day mountain bike with Gringo Mike. It was expensive but we had a really fun day. The people who we were biking with hadn't done a lot of biking before but the trails weren't very hard at all. Mountain biking over here is mostly biking on dirt roads. The guides were awesome though and could see we had biked a bit so they showed us a section we could do that was more advanced if we wanted to try it but said he couldn't do it himself. Haha well we went down the track and it was pretty much boulder hopping! It was pretty gnarly but we managed to get down in one piece, I had a few bails but no over the handlebars thank goodness. We had full suspension bikes which made it easier. That was a fun challenge. We also got to ride on the top at the front of the truck on the rack up a mountain so we could bike down which was so much fun. It felt like we were flying up!

We met a classic English guy called Allan in San Gil and travelled with him to Guatape
which is a gorgeous little lake town just out of Medellin.
We stayed at Mi Casa Hostel which was such a cool little spot. It felt like home. We linked
up with a French girl Lo and walked to the top of the rock which overlooks the whole lake district. It was 740 loooong steps to the top.. We then missioned around the lake into the main town for 4 hours and on the way we were invited by an old farmer to come check out his farm. He was so awesome, he plants loads of fruit and veges on his patch of land for his family and friends to eat. He walked us around the finca, picking fruit for us to try and explaining everything. So awesome! He was such a sweetie.
Guatape town was beautiful. It was so colourful, every house has murals painted on it depicting something about the family. One house had giraffes because they were the tallest family in the village!

The next day us four hired some kayaks and missioned around the many inlets towards town. We had so much fun as it is so hot and we were loving being in fresh water.

We missioned to the airport after spending 3 awesome nights in Guatape. We could have stayed longer but we will be back to Colombia one day for sure. We can even tag a small trip on after Ecuador if we have enough time, while we work our way back up to America.

We flew to Quito in Northern Ecuador from Medellin and then on to Guayaquil in the South of Ecuador. If we didn't fly we were looking at a 30 odd hour bus which was still pretty expensive and we'd had enough of loooonng overnight travel in Mexico. We may have to look at doing this trip at the end on our way back to America but we'll see... We stayed the night in Guayaquil and then flew out to the Galapagos Islands!! The currency of Ecuador is American dollars so it's great to drop all the thousands of the colombian Pesos. They only really use $1-5 USD which is awesome. Dinner for two was $5! We have just arrived on the Galápagos and we love it already. We are staying in Puerto Ayora which is the main town. We met Katia from Belgium at the airport so we are hanging out with her which is awesome. She is visiting New Zealand for a month in December so we are giving her loads of tips. We are here for two weeks so I'll keep the diary up to date and post it online afterwards 😊

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Comments

[Philberto]

Mean bix
Hey dudes! Looks amazing! Enjoy the Galapagos - looking forward to seeing the mean pics of that hot spot. see you bback safe and sound in NZ for missions this summer. Love from Philberto

[Philberto]

Guano!
Shikakaaa!

[trickerinus]

getting amungbean
Hey team! Looks cooooool beans hope you're both staying safe and seeing you in decembre for some kiwi actioninus rex